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| City Manager's Weekly Report for the Week Ending April 30th, 2010 April 30, 2010 |
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Mayor and Councilmembers: This is the weekly report for the week ending April 30th, 2010.
The next City Council meeting will be on Tuesday, May 4th, beginning with a Closed Session at 5:00 PM, followed by the regular City Council meeting agenda scheduled to begin at 6:30 PM.
The City of Richmond was honored a week ago Thursday in Oakland by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) at its General Assembly and Regional Summit. In particular, ABAG honored the City with a Growing Smarter Together Award in the Building a Better Bay Area Urban Design Award category for the Richmond Memorial Civic Center Revitalization Project. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin accepted the award on behalf of the City. Also attending were Councilmembers Jim Rogers, Tom Butt and Maria Viramontes, Planning Commissioners Virginia Finlay, Sheryl Lane and Carol Teltschick-Fall, City Manager Bill Lindsay, Planning Director Richard Mitchell and Community & Economic Development Director Steve Duran. Mayor McLaughlin and Councilmembers Viramontes and Butt served as City Council liaisons to the Civic Center Project throughout the design and construction. The one-day summit was focused on strategies for sustainable growth for the Bay Area. Councilmember Rogers is the City’s delegate to ABAG and also attended the business meeting Thursday.
On Tuesday, April 20th, the Port of Richmond welcomed the first of two ships into the new Honda Port of Entry. On Tuesday, the Frontier Ace arrived, carrying 2,900 vehicles, followed later in the week by the Polaris Ace, with an additional 900 cars. The Port’s contract with American Honda Motors and AutoWarehousing (AWC) will provide $88 million in revenue over the next 15 years, as well as 200 family-wage jobs.
Representatives from the City, The first car
During the past two weeks, the City Council Finance Committee and City staff attended the first two of seven scheduled community budget meetings, the first at the May Valley Community Center (El Sobrante) and the second at the Point Richmond Community Center. At the most recent meeting in Point Richmond, attendees raised questions regarding payment of property tax assessments on foreclosed property, sales tax on marijuana dispensaries, utility users’ tax ballot measures, and what sacrifices have been made in the upcoming budget. Listed below are the remaining dates and locations of Finance Committee budget meetings. The proposed FY 2010-11 budget is being printed and distributed this weekend. May 12 7:30 pm Harbor Master’s Office May 20 5:30 pm Nevin Community Center May 27 7:15 pm Annex Senior Center May 27 8:00 pm Sojourner Truth Church
The RichmondBUILD Green Career Training Academy will have a site visit by Congressman George Miller and Assistant Secretary of the Department of Labor, Jane Oates, at 9:00 AM Monday morning at the RichmondBUILD Crafts facility, 500 23rd street, at the corner of Barrett and 23rd Street. Congressman Miller and Secretary Oates will have an opportunity to view a solar panel installation, as well as a demonstration of the elements of a home energy audit and retrofit.
The Richmond YouthWORKS program has learned that they are the recipient of one of six statewide $500,000 grants to prevent at-risk and in-risk youth from dropping out of high school and assist them to succeed academically. The YouthWORKS Division was contacted for assistance on the grant by Supervisor John Gioia’s office and the Contra Costa Workforce Investment Board (WIB). With the assistance of the Glen Price Group, the Supervisor and the WIB, a successful application was submitted to serve 200 West County youth with a meaningful, career path work experience (100 from the City of Richmond and 100 from the remainder of West County) combined with an academic program that emphasizes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) curriculum. While the grant will not pay any wages for this year’s SYEP, the measurable outcomes it will produce will relate to the work experience, as well as employment placement, academic achievement and academic retention.
Led by the League of California Cities, the coalition formed to pass the Local Taxpayer, Public Safety and Transportation Protection Act of 2010 has begun submitting to counties over 1.1 million signatures collected to qualify the initiative for the November statewide ballot. This number virtually assures that the measure will have the required 694,354 valid signatures to qualify a constitutional amendment for the ballot. Counties will now begin the process of validating the signatures and turning in their results to the Secretary of State. The deadline for the Secretary of State to certify measures for the November ballot is June 24th. After formal qualification of the initiative, attention must turn to educating voters about the measure to protect funding for vital local services on which they rely. California voters have overwhelmingly passed measures in previous elections to restrict state raids of local government funds, as well as to dedicate gasoline taxes to transportation and public transit improvements and services. There is every reason to believe voters can be convinced to support this measure as well, particularly in light of cutbacks in local police and fire, parks, libraries, street and road repair, public transit and other local services. As you will recall, the City Council passed a resolution in support of this initiative measure by unanimous vote.
The City’s new website outreach tool is a mail-able postcard of the City’s redesigned website which includes the website address. The postcard is available in the City Manager’s office and front lobby. It has also been distributed at Neighborhood Council meetings.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments about these or any other items of interest to you. Have a great week!
You can sign up to receive the City Manager’s weekly report and other information from the City of Richmond by visiting: www.ci.richmond.ca.us/list.aspx Bill Lindsay
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